I have been fighting off a cold (started with possible strep throat) for the last week. Today I lost my voice.

Oh, so you're just getting started! Welcome to the growing club.

I'm more than 2 months into this. Still hacking up my lungs several times per day, and they seem to regenerate overnight, which is good I guess. Lots of sinus congestion. Kids manage to ooze twice their body weight in snot each and every day. The other night, my 4 year old started yelling at his cough because it was keeping him up hours on end. My wife is getting despondent...she wants to switch to overnight shift and remove the 4 year old from school (permanently) in an attempt to get him, and possibly the rest of us since he's the suspected disease vector, better. My wife and I have been suffering sinus headaches, and this plague has caused each of us to miss a couple of days of work over the past 2 months. About 6 weeks ago, she took the kids to the doctor and is doing so again on Monday. These being cold symptoms (lack of fever suggestions we're not suffering any systemic infections), there's not a lot he can do about it. Last time he suggested OTC allergy meds but that had no effect. It's unlikely all 4 of us would suddenly be allergic to the same thing anyway.

This may seem like an odd question- is it possible you all are allergic to your house? Perhaps a mold or something else that is impacting you all? I say this because I once dated a woman who had a house that every time I went there my eyes would get red and scratchy and if I stayed there overnight I basically felt like I had the flu. The clue was that it went away after I left within an hour but I could imagine that if I lived there it would have hammered me into the ground.

Children are remarkable carriers of illness. They have no concept of cleanliness and freely swap mucus as a matter of standard practice. It does seem to get better as the kids get older, but for the first year that each child mingled with other children, we seemed perpetually sick.

It gets more fun when the school sends out flu alerts, or better yet, lice alerts.

Hell, this winter the school "gave" our 6 year old a hat out of lost and found when he misplaced his. The result was a nice dance with headlice a week later. F#&#. At least when the flu is done with you, you don't need to scour the house, launder everything, and spend weeks checking heads for recurrences.

After the second time it happened, I was tempted to shave our kids' head and call it done. Apparently some little gremlin's parents couldn't figure out how to fix the problem and kept sending them to school to contaminate the other kids over and over.

It's my turn for the cough and congestion that's making the rounds. Just in time for a business trip to Orlando. Ugh.

"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. - Nixon"I don't stand by anything." - Trump“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867

I've been down since Christmas, though still working. Ugh. Got on the Z Pack and Steroids on Tuesday. Last night was the first night I wasn't coughing and choking all night while laying down in a couple of weeks and my voice came back yesterday. I usually try and tough out colds but this one happened coincidentally with a doctor visit who took one list to my lungs and said nope. Take these and come back in a week for a blood draw and a flew shot.

Wife stayed home sick last night, and I had to WFH in the afternoon to let her rest. Thought it was the flu, but today she is complaining of tonsillitis and sore throat. I gave her Chloraseptic and she complained it tasted bad. Still probably flu...she works in healthcare and somehow avoided getting a flu shot.